“You work in a job you hate, to buy stuff you don’t need, to impress people that you don’t like “ – Unknown. This quote was written by an anonymous individual, and has been circling around the internet, it may have triggered a debate, some may totally agree, while some may not agree to it entirely. Nevertheless, this quote appears under the subject of consumerism. Has this quotation brought out some light on a form of truth? And how has this influenced design nowadays?
This anonymous person must have some truth, or facts that support his or her statement. So how does this consumerism begin anyway? Historians say that this phenomenon started in Europe before the Industrial Revolution, and along that time from 1840 to 1920 after the Industrial revolution in the United State and Europe, companies started advertising in order to promote their products. This is when it got out of control, this is when material possession is started to be considered important, as time grows scientist and psychologists have done researches on this subject of material possession. In 1920 the first radio station in America is set up, this is when advertisement reached out even a wider audience. After the end of World War II, the governments are trying ways to strengthen back their economies, one of the ways is to promote and increase consumer spending.
Consumerism has been growing from the Industrial Revolution until today, the world that we lived in, and ever since then scientist has been doing strings of researches on the subject. Many concerning results has been evaluated, but that is for another discussion.
Today, consumerism has done and effect many things in many ways, this has created a lifestyle, a social status, created benchmarks in qualities. The majority of the public has accepted consumerism in positive way, sees it as an advantage. There are the concerned minority that sees this as a disadvantage, and they are trying to make the others aware of the negative impact. This can be prooved by the appearance of documentaries by high profile individuals about the negative impact of consumerism, even tough it did not linked directly to consumerism, it definitely touched on the subject.
As time keeps on adding, where we are right now about this phenomenon, according to global issues.org, a pie chart of the world’s private consumption of the year 2005 shows that world’s riches 20% consume 76.6%, where
world’s middle 60%
Fig.1. Share of world’s private consumption,2005 pie chart consume 21.9%, where
The world’s poorest 20% consume 1.5%. This data is taken from World Bank Development Indicator 2008. Thus, that is the status of this phenomenon in the twenty first century.
Car is chosen as the subject for this consumerism, as it is somehow come second after house in property ownership. The funny thing about cars is that, it is considered as diminishing assets and that is a fact. Yet people are spending huge amount of money on expensive cars. Nowadays cars came up with new models every five years, and people are still buying. However it slowed down a lot after the previous recession on the world.
Then came the different classes of cars, starting the mass produced cheap reliable cars, to expensive and sometimes not reliable at all. Still people buy them, regardless of their personal reasons.
Considering consumerism as the main subject of discussion, ridiculously expensive cars are the main concerned. Why people buy these cars anyway? What made them so different from the other cheap mass produce reliable car anyway? they are considered as Exotic cars. This term appears on the 21st century, they were previously known as Super cars. For the American this term is for a car with a big engine displacement placed in a smaller car, but for the European it is different. They have to gain their brands by proven performance over time. On the race track, Lotus, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz , and many other brands that dies over time, takes up endurance races, and by winning it, they have gain fame and trust.
Here are brands that the general public might recognize easily. For examples grouped by country made, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin, Lotus from the British. Ferrari, Lamborghini from the Italian. Porsche from German. These are the general exotic brands that are widely knows, these guys barely scratch the metal for the Exotic car market, there are more brands that are more exclusive and are not mass produced, being produced in limited amount, making it a more desirable to own one, triggering the sense of consumerism for those who can afford one.
Fanatics, or in the economic term, it is called brand loyalty. According to the research done, it is still unexplainable why people kept on buying the same brand over and over again, while a warning says this behaviour is totally different from inertia, where people buying the same stuff, with the reason, as less effort is needed to buy the others. This behaviour is evidence that people can get comfortable from a certain brand, as certain brand can offer a pleasurable experience.
The research done about why consumer become brand loyal is still in definitive, no certain reason can be explained, but it mention about how a brand can satisfy a person needs, even tough what needs it has given is unclear. Some how this is connected to a psychological fulfilment, the need to desire a sense of belongingness.
Besides advertising by all sorts of media offered today, there is still one media that is very powerful, in a sense it gives instant trust to the receiver. It is from the mouth of a user of a certain product, it is even better if the person is a brand loyal, he or she can give multiple reasons ranging of all the alphabets available. Sometimes totally ignoring the bad things that come with the product, from mouth to mouth, from one party to another, spreading like a wild bush fire on a dry forest in summer. However, as fast as it spread, it is as worst when something is not delivered the right way, information can reached short, or even replaced, losing the real meaning of the initial information. Then again, the other Medias can confirm things out.
As the momentum of the product is raised, about the special qualities that it can offer, how it changes lifestyle to a whole new level, how those who can not afford can only imagine, how the line of affordability is fading fast beyond reached, making it ultra exclusive. This way of thinking however has set some standard beyond its’ product, as it give lifestyles, the packaging has to be different, it has to be high standard, how the shop has to be designed, with a high standard, how the after sale service is planned and designed, it has to be the same standard as the product.
Every year a product in form of services or tangible in nature, has pushed this to a whole new level, making it super exclusive. Let us apply that to cars, the exotics, even the exotics is then again divided to different class, to exotics and hyper exotics, one is impossible to imagine what kind of service they can offer, what kind of lifestyle they have changed or given, for some, all they can do is read about it.
Imagine a famous and expensive logo of any product, everything that has that logo on has to be at least up to a certain standard, regardless it is the plastic bag, or the packaging, and even the shop itself. The consumers has somehow played an important role in all of this, as more and more brands of product is trying to pleased their costumers beyond their imagination, making them brand loyal. Top famous brand shop has to be designed by someone who has the same recognition in his or her field. A Louise Vuitton shop has to be design by someone who is a Louise Vuitton in his or her field; this is a brand imaging, giving costumers even more sense of proud ness carrying their products.
How these high end product offers lifestyle by the first step taken to their environments whether it is a shop, an exhibition, or an office. Someone in a suite will opened the door, the politeness of the employees, how they have greeted, all of this instantaneously changed your experience, the pleasant experience gained, the memory built, how all of this has played psychologically to the costumers.
As these kind of service is getting recognized, either by experience or by person to person telling each other, how a person who never stepped into the place of particular product, already have high expectation, looking out the experience told by friends. This standard has to meet the individual expectation, and would settle nothing less, or the individual will be disappointed. This goes to all the high profile brands of product, even now, knowing about the high standard service they provide, these high profile brands again pushes the envelope to stand out, grabbing attention even more, and unintentionally yet again raised the bar higher for high standard and expectation.
The designer of the place, either it is a point of sale place or an office, is pushed by the brand image, pushing design to the limit, making the place screams out what the product is, how the place has stands out from the rest of the common mass built shops. Designer has to do intense research to meet the client quota, before the standard is set by the costumer; the owner has set the bar even higher to please the costumers. As a personal view, this practice has done incredible to the design for the placed, by satisfying the client, designer has pushed themselves, producing amazing landmarks, take Tod’s in Tokyo, Japan, design by Toyo Ito. The structure has grabs many people attentions, by looking at it, an individual can tell that the place is a high end place, not just another department store.
Fig.2. Toyo Ito’s TOD’S, Tokyo
CONCLUSION:
By understanding of how consumerism played, somewhat a major role in high end design, for high end products. How designers have came up with fantastic, eye grabbing designs of landmarks and architecture, how others has been inspired by their work, bring up the standard up for the others. Personally this is a fantastic phenomenon in design wise, how this has fuelled the design industry, setting up the standard of each projects, making it unique from the others, making it exclusive, an individual design. A design only made and built for the product, bringing out the product image to the skin of their shops and offices.
It is amazing how the whole things revolve of each other, consumerism behaviour and design, from a human behaviour setting back in history, in the end, products are meant to be sold to the public, it is set by the public, made for the public.
Based on the analysis of how the whole thing is heading, how design is pushed, and even the mass produce is bringing up their standard making them stands out from the others. Take the Housing Development Board apartment, The Pinnacle at Duxton Plain, Singapore. This is an excellent example how, even the mass produced product, tried to be different from the other structure of the same class. Winning awards and receiving records in the process.
Fig.3 The Pinnacle at Duxton Plain
Here is my personal prediction of how the future will be shaped by this. There will be no longer boring, pragmatic design with today standard, while it might be considered boring or stale in the future, there will be designs that can only be described with words in the future. There will be a new phenomenon, how to stands out from the standing out. The word sexy, amazing, fantastic has different meaning from today, by the help of engineers there are new ways of building structures, new material usage. The future of design in the world will be amazing, beyond today’s’ people imaginations. It would be fantastic beyond words, in the eye of people today.
Catherine V. Janson- Boyd, 2010, Consumer Psychology, Open University Press
Jan Lorence , Lee Skolnick , Craig Berger, 2007, What is exhibition design?, Page
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